Whitehorse Chloe (Box Hill)

Fo0die dined as a guest of Whitehorse Chloe and as such, the rating does not give any consideration to customer service.

Whitehorse Chloe is a breakfast/brunch destination in the morning, offers high tea in the late afternoon and then serves dinner during the evening. Our review will cover our two visits; one for brunch and the other for their Melbourne Cup high tea (yes I know, I am extremely late with this one! Therefore please check the venue’s instagram page to avoid disappointment).

For both our visits, we parked in Box Hill Central’s car park and walked to the venue as we had other things we had to do within the shopping centre.

Interior

The venue has two entries, one from the road and the other is via The Chen towers which enters the venue from the side.

Entering from the road, the coffee counter is on the left. Looking further into the venue (the image above), everything is neatly partitioned with a ‘section’ dedicated to each area; the kitchen on the left and the bar on the right. A raised garden bed just next to the coffee counter, acts as a partition to a small seating area (which is where the side entrance accessed via The Chen tower leads you into). This area has a beautiful horse painted on the wall and was where we sat for brunch.

Just before the bar are stairs leading you up to additional seating or a small function area (pictured on the left; we sat here for high tea). Walking further into the venue, past the kitchen and bar, along the windows is an additional seating area with outdoor seating also available.

Food/Drinks – Brunch

The brunch menu is a simple A3 sized menu folded in half. On one side is a list of drinks with the usual suspects; coffee, tea, bottled cold pressed juice, fresh smoothie and soft drinks. On the same page at the corner is a small kids menu. On the opposite page is a list of 14 dishes along with a ‘build your own’ option and sides.

The menu is very much Asian influenced with the likes of kimchi, ramen and pork belly on the menu.

Starting with our usual drinks of choice, the matcha was sweetened (but not too overly sweet) with a subtle matcha flavour. The mocha was well balanced. And if you’re not keen on brunch, the venue offers a range of house made muffins (the one we had was slightly drier in texture than our preference).

The three dishes we tried are the venue’s most popular dishes. The ramen dish was very tasty as expected (thanks to the kimchi and broth) and went nicely with the smooth slippery noodles and half fat/half meat piece of pork.

The croquette was our favourite dish out of the three with a variety of components on the plate. The croquette itself was crisp on the outside with a good amount of king salmon (such that we could tell this was a salmon croquette). Something to note is that the texture of the croquette was not the smooth creamy type but a rough mash potato texture. Thanks to the salmon and the prawn aioli, the overall dish has a ‘seafoody’ flavour (which some may not enjoy). If we were to nitpick, the only item on the plate that did not match the description on the menu was the corn salsa which was not torched (or torched enough).

This dish looked absolutely stunning on the plate. The croissant arrived at the table with a glass cloche filled with apple bark smoke which infused into the dish giving the dish an overall smokey flavour. The sweet and sour peppers and the apple vanilla hollandaise complemented the smokey flavour well with the sweet and sour peppers coming out quite strong in flavour on the overall dish.

If you’re after something a little different to the usual offering at other Melbourne cafes and don’t mind Asian influence dishes, then Whitehorse Chloe is an ideal place to try.

Food/Drinks – High tea

In the afternoon, the venue offers a high tea which is beautifully presented in a bird cage with three tiers.

For the Melbourne Cup high tea special, the bottom tier was made up of the king salmon croquette to be shared, a prawn to be shared and a chicken and avocado (plenty of avocado!) sandwich each.

The second tier has a single scone served with jam and cream which we shared. The top tier has three petite gateau which may vary with each high tea order.

Serving size wise, this is perfect for the late afternoon catch up over a nibbly/snack (i.e. this is not intended as a proper meal).